Angels in Neptune
by Serena Thorn
Summary: Veronica is met with a familiar face after being injured on the job.


Title: Angels in Neptune  
Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Veronica is met with a familiar face after being injured on the job.  
Spoilers: 3x14  
Word Count: 2853  
Warnings: Major Character Death  
Disclaimer: Veronica Mars is not owned by me, but by Rob Thomas. I'm simply borrowing these characters for non-profit entertainment.  
A/N: This is my first real attempt at a supernatural romance fic, but I'm a sucker for tragedy and romance (won't go into why). And yes, I do hate myself for doing this to Keith, but I have my reasons.

* * *

"I knew I'd be seeing you here some day," Lamb smirked down at Veronica. "Of course I hadn't anticipated it being for another fifty years or so," he went on as he offered his hand to her.

Veronica ignored his implied help and stood on her own. "What are you doing here?" Then she sighed. "Great. I'm dead, aren't I? I should've known I'd end up in hell. But with you?! That's a new low."

"Nice to see you too, Veronica. I've been fine, thanks for asking. Haven't missed living one bit either, not when I've got something better than cable now."

"Laker Girls' locker room? Why am I not surprised?" she rolled her eyes. This was ridiculous! One perp had gotten in one lucky shot and now she had to suffer eternity with Lamb?!

"Nope. Better," he grinned as he looked her over. Getting away with watching Veronica undress and shower and skinny dip and even occasionally cook naked? Yes. He had found Heaven. "But for the record you're not dead. Not yet at least. What do you remember?"

"I was chasing some guy down an alley and then a car came out of nowhere and the next thing I knew my chest and back really hurt, there was a lot of blood, I couldn't move and then I was on the ground. And now here I am. With you."

"So you went off to be an FBI agent and by year five ended up getting shot. Sounds familiar."

"Four years in as sheriff, baseball bat to the head. We're not the same."

He shrugged. "Someone must think we are. Look around, Mars. It's just us."

It looked like paradise, a private tropical island maybe, but it really was just them. And part of her did appreciate him looking like she remembered, only in khaki shorts and a form-fitting blue t-shirt as opposed to his old uniform. Everything else about him was the same.

But this couldn't be Heaven. For one thing he was there. A dream maybe. Yeah. That made sense. She had been shot and now she was in a coma. Okay, she could buy that. And since she was dreaming she could say whatever she wanted and no one would ever have to know about it. Which meant if she chose to admit that she had missed Lamb that would just be in her head, it didn't make it real. She couldn't deal. She would only be here until she woke up so she figured she would make the best of it.

"Don't act like you haven't missed me, Veronica," Lamb went on, interrupting her thoughts as he took a seat beside her on a beach lounger a few yards from the gently rocking ocean. "I saw you when your dad gave you the news. Had to admit I was surprised you weren't bursting into song."

She really hated remembering that day. But every birthday he wasn't there for, every I_death_/Iiversary, there the memories were. And they never faded. "Yeah, well, I guess that's what I got for thinking you'd be a permanent pain in my ass."

He almost laughed. "So all I had to do was die for you to miss me?"

"You could have just not turned into a monumental jackass and we could've kept our friendship going in the first place."

"You're just bitter because I was the one guy you couldn't get to bend over backwards for you."

"Says the guy who checked out Terrance's hanger after my dad told him what I found inside the cabinet," she ginned.

"Says the man who waited until he had evidence before going after Mercer and his buddies."

"And the man who left Logan alone with Mercer and Moe -"

"Ah. Not me. That was a deputy."

"It was your call. You knew what they'd tried to do to me, you knew what they had done to me, you were even willing to take my statement in the middle of the night for the first time ever."

"You really want to replay every memory, Veronica? I know we technically have forever if you don't wake up, but wouldn't you rather spend it not looking back? Rather looking ahead?" he asked as he looked towards the water.

Don had already made up his mind. He wouldn't trick her or manipulate her into staying, but he had missed having someone to talk to like this. And maybe he had missed her more than he cared to admit.

"It really is pretty for hell," Veronica admitted as she watched the low waves roll in.

"This isn't' hell," he told her as he leaned back in the lounger.

"Then how did you get past the pearly gates?" she asked as she followed his lead.

"Guess they didn't think I was as horrible as you did."

"You weren't always horrible," she muttered.

Lamb sat forward and curled his arms around her tiny waist before pulling her back to him. "Enough looking back for one day."

"Thought you'd always want to have that drawn out heart to heart," she sighed as she reclined against him.

"We both had our issues, now we're here. We're away from the pressures of our old day to day, no having to keep up appearances. Here we can just be who we were before -"

"Before I thought you were horrible?"

Lamb half-smiled. "Yeah."

"So where's everyone else? Meg? Lilly?"

"Consider me the welcoming committee. It's not like we know if you're staying yet or not. Right now you're the coma girl with a visitor's pass."

"Why did I get you then? Punishment for the perp getting away?" she snarked.

"Guess they wanted you with someone who could understand you. Killed, or nearly killed, on the job. Or maybe they just knew how much you missed me."

"Oh, right. I missed you so much I cried every night, clutching my pillow and dreaming of you -"

Don leaned into her then, dipping his head until his lips were just brushing the shell of her ear. "I saw you, Veronica. You can't tell me you didn't miss me. My funeral? Afterwards? Why you bypassed Balboa County and went straight into the FBI? I know."

"If you're trying to trick me into saying something -"

"You still haven't gotten used to seeing Keith back in that office. You still hold your breath every time you walk into the building, you still expect to see me and you still get a pain right about there," he stated as he brought the fingertips of his left hand to her chest, "when you remember why I'm not there and just how your daddy got his job back."

"You should've taken the back-up when he offered it."

"I was trying to protect him, just like when I got him off that plane. Besides now you've seen what life is like without me and I know you hate it. Sure you've had your fun with Echolls and you've enjoyed your other friend's basketball games and everything else, but I know why you refuse to talk about me, especially with your dad. You don't want them to see that you care. I guess it's just a good thing for you that here only you and I will know this."

"How do I even know this is real?"

He shrugged. "I don't guess you do. But think about this - why would you dream of me like this? I'm usually less clothed in your actual dreams and we never do this much talking."

That convinced Veronica this was real. She was suddenly feeling sick. Lamb knew about her dreams?! The only thing that made it worse was the reminder that despite him being _very_ alive in her dreams she did technically have sex dreams about a man who in her conscious state had been dead for almost five years.

**

"Veronica?" Keith asked as he watched her eyelids being to flutter open.

"Lamb?" Veronica breathed. It had been such a long night. He had calmed her down, he had brought her back, she just wanted him back.

"It's me, Veronica," Keith swallowed. Asking for a dead man? No way was that a good sign, but then she had nearly died tonight. He couldn't tell her that then, not when she sounded, God help him, I_hopeful_/I.

"Lamb," Veronica smiled, "I knew you wouldn't leave me again." Her vision was too blurred for her to accurately make out the frame beside her bed. She could make out just enough of the uniform though and for her that was enough. The sheriff had rescued her.

Of course in her current state she had yet to remember just who Neptune's sheriff was again.

"It's Dad, Veronica. Lamb's - Lamb isn't here. I am. Can you tell me who shot you?"

"Go ahead," Lamb smiled from the opposite side of her bed. She was slipping again and as long as she was like this he knew he couldn't completely leave her. He was the one who had gotten her this far. Who knew it would take her nearly dying to be glad to see him? Oh. Right. That only made sense.

"I don't know who shot me, I told you that," she stated.

Keith followed his daughter's eye line. No one was there. He didn't know whether to call for a doctor or simply cry. He couldn't lose his little girl and if she was truly talking to what he could only think to call a hallucination then he knew either the medications were working overtime or that this would be the worst night of his life.

"Me, yes. You need to tell him," Don nodded to his former mentor. "He's the sheriff now. He's the one you need to tell this to. What did you see?"

"All I saw was the gun. Black, big, automatic and before I knew it I was on the ground and the thing I knew I was seeing your stupid 'I told you so' smirk."

Lamb only smirked in reply, defiantly. Just because he was dead didn't mean he wasn't still the same smug bastard and he knew Veronica loved him for it.

"Smirk? Veronica, who are you -" He took a deep breath. He couldn't even finish the question, not when he knew the answer. His daughter was hovering between life and death and only one man would have the nerve to smirk at her for that. If Lamb wasn't already dead Keith knew he would kill the younger man.

"Come on, Veronica. Which would you rather do tonight? Stay here and bitch at me for the rest of time or help your father catch your killer?"

Veronica sighed. I_Bastard._/I "I don't know who it was. I just know it wasn't the guy I'd been tailing. It was a block away from where that guy lived and there was some red car, a late model red sedan when the other guy drove a green SUV. I just remember the gun and the blasts and then you."

Keith wrote it all down as she spoke, save for the 'and then you.' He knew then who had nearly killed her. A case she had worked a month ago. One of the guys had only gotten probation. Clearly he wanted to get back to jail and right then Keith was damn sure he was going to make it happen.

"Okay, you still didn't say it to his face, which I'm sure Daddy Mars will ground you for later, but you finally told him. So. Decision time. You know you can't stay like this forever. Lilly didn't even make it this far, the Manning girl made her choice and then I had to make mine. Now it's your turn. Where do you want to go?"

"I want to go where we were. The beach. Home," she told him, already feeling fresh tears welling in her eyes. Amazingly they didn't burn like she knew they were supposed to.

"I'll take you home as soon as I can, Veronica, I promise," Keith told her, still trying to get her to look at him.

Lamb sighed. Giving up wasn't Veronica's style. But he knew the pain she had been in; he had seen what had happened to her and he knew she would never work as a cop again even if she lived through this. Crime fighting had mostly been what she lived for, if she couldn't do that anymore - well, it was no wonder she was saying what she was saying. "Which home, Veronica? Do you want to come back with me?"

She groaned. "I miss you, you son of a bitch."

Lamb only smiled. "I'll still be here when you come back to me."

"Think the half-dead girl here could get an ETA on just when that might be? Just so I know when to run up what credit cards and all?"

Despite her wanting to make light of the situation, he only shook his head.

"Well then I only have one question left."

"What's that?"

"Are there Snicker Doodles in Heaven?"

She sounded like a five-year-old with that question. Lamb almost smiled at that flicker of innocence. Keith was beginning to cry.

"If you bake 'em," Lamb nodded, still unable to believe he had to repress a smile at this. Veronica was dying and he was giddy! And not even because he hated her, because clearly he never truly had. Maybe there really was about to be a special hell reserved for him after this but in the meantime he was just too relieved to have his favorite pain in the ass back. Eternity with Veronica Mars? He hadn't even dared to dream of that. "But don't you think you owe someone something before you go?"

That time Veronica caught his nod to her father. When she looked over she saw him, her vision wasn't blurred anymore, she could even see the tears in his eyes. She put on the best brave face she could muster and told him, "I love you, Daddy and tell Wallace and the others I'll miss them too." She had to take another deep breath before adding, "And Deputy Lamb says hi."

"Veronica, Lamb isn't -" Keith managed just before the bleeps of her heart monitor changed to a steady, entirely too long shriek. One that told him what he couldn't bear to admit.

**

Lamb laughed as Veronica stood before him again. "I can't believe you just told him that. And I haven't been a deputy since -"

"I liked you better when you were Deputy Lamb. And why shouldn't I have told him that? At least now he knows I'm not alone."

"Yeah, I'm sure the idea of you with me will be what'll help him get to sleep at night," he sighed.

"Whatever and it's not like you can act like you don't miss getting on his every nerve. And I had pants before when we were at the beach! I demand not to be pants-less!"

"I don't know, I think I like you better like this."

"Do you want to get beaten up by a half-naked girl who's half your size?"

"Depends on how open it leaves that gown of yours," he grinned as he peered over her to get a glimpse of her ass.

That time she did punch his arm.

Lamb only laughed as he fought the urge to throw her over his shoulder. "Eternity with me, Mars. You know that's what you're getting."

"I always knew I'd go to hell," she groaned.

"We had this conversation. One woman's hell is another man's heaven. You get your Snicker Doodles and I get a woman who bakes. Sounds like heaven to me."

"You just want to have your way with me, just like you've wanted since I was sixteen. You're still a dirty old man even in death."

"Yeah, well you still chose me and -"

"I chose not to be a vegetable, thank you."

Ignoring her interruption, he continued, "And if you weren't dead I wouldn't be able to have my way with you."

"Great. I get the horny dead guy," she stated with a shake of her head and roll of her blues.

"You know it," he grinned as he dipped his head to kiss her with the intensity of nearly ten years worth of frustrations. It had been bad enough when he was alive and just figuring she considered herself to be too good for him. But then after he had died he had been sure he wouldn't see her again for more years then he cared to count. But then not even he could have foreseen today.

Even better, he hadn't manipulated her, he had let it be her decision and she had chosen this. She wanted to be out of her pain, she had stayed strong and made up her own mind. That was what told Lamb everything he needed to know. He really was getting heaven again, his true vision of heaven in fact. Eternity with his favorite former adversary.

The End


End file.
